Mount Gay Rum is back with one of its most consistently quality—and rarest—releases. The fourth in the Barbadian distillery’s Single Estate Series, bottling 25_04_Vt19dp (or 25_04, for short) is a 100% double pot stilled rum, aged for five years in ex-bourbon barrels before bottling at 55% ABV.
With under 3,000 bottles released globally, it’s one of Mount Gay’s most limited rums. And discerning aficionados, take note: It’s also one of the tastiest.
The Single Estate Series traces its origins back to 2015, the same year Mount Gay purchased 324 acres of the Mount Gay and Oxford Estates. It marked a pretty important milestone for the Rémy Cointreau-owned brand. For the first time in centuries, the distillery could control the entire process of production, from growing sugarcane through fermentation, distillation, and aging. (My colleague Tony Sachs has gone in-depth on Mount Gay’s particular approach to sugarcane and molasses production.)
Today, Mount Gay grows around 13 different sugarcane cultivars on its estate. (It’s worth noting only a portion of Mount Gay’s production comes from its own estate, and the brand still buys a large amount of its cane from other farms.) Each Single Estate Series release features rum produced from this estate-grown cane. For release 25_04, Master Blender Trudiann Branker decided to focus on a single year of harvest, in this case 2019. Molasses produced from that crop had a particularly high sugar content at around 72%. The molasses then underwent an extended, nine-day fermentation, which was long enough to trigger a secondary fermentation as well. (Mount Gay’s standard fermentation period is around four days.)
Rum from two different pot still distillations was then blended and aged for five years in ex-bourbon barrels. The rum was slow-proofed down before bottling at 55% ABV.
We got an advance taste. As with its three predecessors, this Single Estate Series rum is quite good—truly among the best stuff coming out of Mount Gay today.
A first sniff brings both vibrant fruit and trademark pot still funk. Spice apples, crushed mulberries, poached pears, and bright red maraschino cherry leads, followed quickly thereafter by treacle and brandy soaked fruitcake. Both lemongrass and sawgrass lend herbal components, alongside a considerable hit of drying alfalfa hay; that combo of scents is both grassy and citrus-forward. Wood varnish and seasoned oak round out the nose. It’s composed, captivating, and multifaceted, just like its predecessors in the Single Estate series.
I really liked the nose—but the palate somehow improves from there. Pears in syrup meets what the brand calls a “salty smokiness” with plenty of herbal and floral elements to provide depth and character. There’s a veritable medley of fruits here, and one could create a different list with each sip. A touch of bitter cherry rounds out the finish, which lingers in the mouth without turning cloying.
Mount Gay Single Estate Series 25_04_Vt19dp is limited to 2,754 bottles globally, and just 312 will go on sale in the United States. Each 700 mL bottle carries a suggested retail price of $350.